Grandmothers Against Poverty and Aids (GAPA) support children’s programs as part of their service to the community.
Grandmothers who look after children are often their sole caregivers, and GAPA aims to help these families anyway they can.
In 2003, it came to the management team’s notice that there seemed to be a large number of small children present in the workshops and support groups who were a distraction to the grandmothers. Grandmothers in charge of these children were unable to afford to send them to preschool or creche. An application to the Victim Empowerment department of Social Services resulted in a donation of R50 000. This donation and some generous private sponsors enabled them to send 53 children of preschool age to their nearest preschool in 2004.
This aspect of GAPA’s intervention strategy has proved to be very popular and gives grandmothers a real boost to know that they can send their young grandchildren to a safe and stimulating environment while they have some time to themselves.
In January 2007, GAPA started its Aftercare Service for 50 vulnerable children who attend the local primary school. The headmaster and teachers identified children who went home after school to empty homes, lived in shacks or were sickly.
Writer Jo-Anne Smetherham reflects upon what it means to her to interview six grandmothers from Khayelitsha, Cape Town...